Language use and workplace participation in the identity construction of Bumiputera Malay undergraduates in Malaysia

Abstract

Malay identity in research literature is often constructed as an essentialised bond between ethnicity (Bumiputera Malay), religion (Islam) and language (Bahasa Melayu). This study presents a contemporary reading of Bumiputera Malay identities by focusing mainly on language use but also taking into account the adat (culture) and jiwa (soul) as part of Malay sociohistory. Towards this aim, I examined the roles of three languages (Bahasa Melayu, English and Mandarin Chinese) in the process of identity construction for a group of Bumiputera Malay undergraduates from a Bumiputera-exclusive university in Malaysia before, during and after their industrial attachments in the final semester of their diploma studies. Working within a part essentialist and part post-structuralist framework, I carried out my fieldwork in two cycles from December 2010 to April 2011. In the first cycle, a survey instrument was used to profile 102 undergraduates from the university’s Administration and Management Faculty. Then, in the longer second cycle, eight focal students were invited to participate further. Multiple qualitative instruments were employed to collect data as these students carried out their work roles within the private sector. Using a communities of practice theoretical framework (Wenger 1998, 2009) analysis of the data revealed the interrelationships between their language use and workplace participation. The findings point to three critical phases in the process of identity construction: campus, working and future life; these are interconnected phases within their ‘life journey’. The life journey, as both process and product of identity construction, opens up multiple vantage points where the past, present and future of the undergraduates, both real and imagined, came together. This, in turn, helped them not only to imagine the selves that they wanted to become but also to exert their agency and influence episodes within their day-to-day lives. As they used the languages that they know and participated in their workplace communities, identities were constructed and reconstructed. Although not all their language and workplace experiences were useful in shaping their life trajectories, on the whole, the eight participants began to explore future possibilities when they utilised the attachment as proving grounds for themselves as young urban professionals.